


break your silence for me

by NoteInABottle



Category: Given (Anime), Given (Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 02:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20166481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoteInABottle/pseuds/NoteInABottle
Summary: Akihiko has always wanted something more than his touch or his love.





	break your silence for me

Silence sounds different at night, softer, like a mute over strings still vibrating too softly to be heard. More intense, as if breaking that silence would bring down the wrath of an entire audience. And so there is always a pressure in Ugetsu's chest, and a catch to his breath, whenever he practices his violin at night.

He loves that silence, though. The _demand_ in it, that implicit requirement: if you do not know what you're doing, then do not make a sound.

It's an ungodly hour, 3 AM maybe, or later. He hasn't remembered to bring a clock down here, so Ugetsu makes a note of it, and then promptly forgets it again. There's a gnawing hunger inside him, hollow and aching. He thinks that maybe he forgot to eat again. But that thought is fleeting, and disappears quickly as well. The pang of hunger fades as he focuses in on the problem in front of him - the same page of sheet music that he has been staring at for the better half of this night.

There's a trill on the fourth bar that had given him shivers of pleasure when he'd heard it in a recording, but he hasn't quite figured out why yet. He's replicated it, over and over, matching the sound as closely as he could, but there's something dull about it when he plays. It's incredibly frustrating, to be stuck on this one bar when he knows he should be practicing the more technically challenging phrases on the fifth page. It's not like this trill is a soloist part anyway. It's literally just the same notes as the ones that the first violinists play, just one octave higher, and that _trill_. Just a fraction of a second on that recording, but it had caught his attention for some reason. He wonders if the performer had been paying special attention to that section, or if it had been a spur of the moment improvisation. It bothers him to think that he has spent perhaps an hour on these seven notes, trying to attempt the impossible, and simulate lightning in a bottle with nothing more than static electricity.

Ugetsu settles his fingers again on the violin strings, starts from a few measures back, and tries again to play like he knows exactly what he's doing.

He gets to the trill, flubs it hard because of his tired fingers and the sudden spike of tension that had driven into him. His wrist flexes, going from fluid to brittle in an instant. There's another thud of a footstep on the wooden staircase leading down into the basement.

This apartment isn't that old, but the paint still peels off in some places and the plaster is cracked in the corners. The stairs creak, loudly, disturbing the blank canvas of silence that Ugetsu has been metaphorically staring at for a long, useless time. Half grateful for the distraction, and half annoyed at the ugly intrusion of sound, Ugetsu looks up.

"Keep playing," Akihiko says, coming down the stairs at an even pace. "I'm just here to make some coffee."

Ugetsu looks around, but there's no clock. He makes his best guess at the time. "Why do you need coffee at 4 in the morning?"

Akihiko gives him an amused look. "It's 7," he says, gently. "I have an extra shift today, since a lot of people are taking the weekend off. Did you pull an all-nighter?"

Ugetsu lowers his violin. "Hm," he says, instead of replying, but Akihiko doesn't really need a reply. He's turned on the stove, and is facing away from Ugetsu now. The long-sleeved shirt he's wearing is slightly too big for him, and it hangs off of his broad frame and goes past his wrists. Akihiko has pushed the sleeves up to his elbows in order to get at the sink.

After a moment of contemplation, Ugetsu decides that maybe he needs a break. "Can you make me some as well?"

"Are you sure?"

Ugetsu shrugs. Coffee has long since stopped having any effect on him. Akihiko pulls out another mug.

"You should sleep," Akihiko says into the silence, making Ugetsu tense again. He hates going to sleep with an unsolved problem in front of him, and he knows that he'll just toss and turn restlessly if he goes to sleep now. He doesn't want to imagine trills running through his head as he lies awake in bed, taunting him with their stupid flourishes and flat dishonesty.

But Akihiko means well, so Ugetsu says, "I'll sleep after this."

Then, with Akihiko still facing away from him, facing the blank wall with his sleep-heavy gaze, Ugetsu turns back to his sheet music and begins to play, from the beginning, this time.

The beginning few pages, he's fine with. They're relatively simple, no exhausting technical trickery, no emotionally draining passages. Clean, simple, thick lines of sound across a clear white backdrop of silence. He gets to the fourth bar, gets past the trill in one flinch of a half-second, and moves on to the more technically demanding part of the movement. He hasn't practiced this part as much as he should have, but he also doesn't care about it as much, so Ugetsu fakes a few notes here and there, allows it to get a little messy, but overall, the shape of the movement is still clean and recognizable. Now that he's gotten to this part, Ugetsu relaxes a little.

There's a touch alongside of the back of his neck, trailing down his spine, a gentle brush of fingers, telling him that the coffee is ready, if he wants it. Ugetsu stubbornly finishes the piece, but there is a dull throb of hunger in his stomach that reminds him that it _would _be nice to have something warm, and more substantial than air.

When he finishes, Ugetsu turns to Akihiko to gauge his reaction. Akihiko is staring at him across the steam of his coffee mug, and his eyes are dark with hunger and despair.

It hurts, unexpectedly. Despite what others say, Ugetsu is not cold and unfeeling - he is still flesh and bone, nerves and skin. And despite what Akihiko thinks, Ugetsu still loves him with every fibre of his being. When Akihiko's only reaction to Ugetsu's music is to hate himself, it is impossible not to feel an answering wave of pain.

Ugetsu lowers his violin, and at the last moment Akihiko remembers to look away. Even so, for that brief moment, they resonate with guilt and disappointment.

Then Ugetsu forces a smile to his face, transfers his bow to his left hand, and goes to get his coffee. He is starving, and the hunger is a cold knot in his stomach, a pressure against his temples, and he would very much like a distraction right now. He finds the mug of coffee next to the stove, still a little too hot to touch. It doesn't matter. He gulps it down gratefully, and feels a little warmth return to his bones.

The silence gradually goes from strained to comfortable, from a string tight with tension to one loose and relaxed. It directly correlates with the line of Akihiko's shoulders, as he sits against the bed and stares at the messy room.

Ugetsu settles in against the bed, next to Akihiko. A wave of exhaustion makes it hard to lift his head up, so he closes his eyes briefly, and imagines being alone.

"When is your next tour?" Akihiko asks, and it's hard to tell what his tone is, under that sleepy rumble over that deep timbre. Ugetsu figures, because it's Akihiko, and because of the words, that it's _sulky._

"Next Saturday," Ugetsu replies without opening his eyes, even though he knows that the words will cut into Akihiko's flat-eyed composure.

There's a moment of silence, this time so tense that Ugetsu is surprised that it doesn't cut like a glass knife. He opens his eyes to gauge Akihiko's reaction. Akihiko isn't angry, not visibly, but he's upset. Ugetsu can't find it in him to apologize. This is Ugetsu's dream, after all. But it hurts, to have something that makes him so happy make Akihiko so sad.

"When are you leaving?"

_I could ask the same of you._

"Tomorrow," Ugetsu says, and the tension stretches to the breaking point.

Akihiko puts down his mug, and Ugetsu braces for the hand that wraps around the back of his neck, and brings him in for a searing kiss. Ugetsu smiles bitterly, but he kisses back, sliding his arms across Akihiko's neck and allowing himself to be dragged into Akihiko's lap. There are fingers tangling into his hair, and Akihiko bites at his lip a little too roughly. So he _is _angry.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Akihiko asks, low and pained, in between kisses to his neck and collarbone. Ugetsu hates himself, briefly, for the way he arches into that touch without a thought for the meaning behind it. He is flesh and bone, skin and nerves after all. It's been a long time since they've last touched, and he is only human.

"I didn't have the time," Ugetsu offers, as an apology, even though it is a lie. They've been avoiding each other, ever since their last fight. The cold silence had dragged on for so long that it had become the default. Ugetsu wonders if he should have done something, figured out a way to fix things before it was too late. But he has no idea what to do, and he has always liked silence.

Akihiko doesn't give any indication of whether he has accepted Ugetsu's apology or not. His kisses grow more insistent, and his hands slide down Ugetsu's body in a way that leaves trails of warmth in its wake. Ugetsu leans into him a little more, closing his eyes and allowing the kisses to make him dizzy and breathless. It's better this way, when both of them stop thinking, and stop hurting.

.

They end up on the bed, tangled around each other and fucking a little more roughly than usual. Ugetsu is gritting his teeth against the pain and the pleasure, trying to keep any sounds from coming out. Little flickers of heat are racing under his skin, like little jolts of static electricity. They follow the motion of Akihiko's fingers against his skin. All of Akihiko's attention is given over to the goal of overwhelming Ugetsu with pleasure, until he can no longer think and can no longer silence himself.

Ugetsu feels that attention like a shackle around him. He can't help but struggle against it, desperate to reach for more of Akihiko's skin. It has been so _long_ since they've touched this way, and Akihiko has always been a considerate lover, kind and generous with his touch, compliant to each of Ugetsu's wordless pleas for more. It would be easy, _so easy_, to pretend that this was just a simple desire for touch.

But Akihiko has always wanted something more than his touch or his love.

His hands are against Ugetsu's hips, bearing him down hard into the mattress. Their empty coffee mugs are forgotten on the floor. The slow, comfortable warmth inside of Ugetsu's bones has been replaced with raging heat, melting hot and on the verge of pain. Akihiko pulls back, breathing hard, betraying an edge of frustration and anger in the back of his throat. Ugetsu smiles at him, bitter and knowing, and Akihiko drives his cock back into Ugetsu's body with a harsh thrust. Ugetsu digs his fingers hard into Akihiko's shoulders, and shudders, which makes Akihiko decide that this is the new pace he should set.

Ugetsu's entire body coils up, tighter and tighter, around that incredible sensation. For an instant, he's afraid that he's going to cry out. He is going to break, snap like a string, if Akihiko doesn't let up -

Ugetsu tries with everything he has to stay quiet. Akihiko would take any sound as encouragement, or agreement - that what they were doing was okay. It doesn't matter how much heat runs along his skin in shivers of pleasure. It doesn't matter how much he craves each thrust, every inch of Akihiko's cock driving into him and filling him up. His fingers dig into Akihiko's skin, his back arches, but Ugetsu closed his throat around the whimper that threatens to come out at the last moment.

Akihiko kisses him as if he wanted to eat the sound of his cries, bites his fingers as if he wanted to taste the callouses.

One day, Ugetsu would not be surprised if Akihiko decides to take a chunk out of his flesh. He almost looks forward to the fight that would happen as a result. He wonders when Akihiko will stop running away from the mess that they've become, stop trying to make this sham of a relationship work. He wonders what it would be like, to practice alone in an empty apartment, with no one to torture with his music. He would lose his audience, sure, but he has so many others that will gladly listen to him, listen to everything he wants to play, and not get hurt.

Then Akihiko pauses above him, and his grip tightens on Ugetsu's arms, and Ugetsu realizes that his attention has drifted away, and Akihiko has been hurt even worse than before.

And because he still loves this man, despite everything he's done to him simply by existing, Ugetsu feels so awful that he can hardly breathe. He flinches away from the look in Akihiko's eyes, desperately searches for a way to fix things between them, and make it better. He never wants to see that look in Akihiko's face again, but the only permanent solution is to make him leave.

So he goes for the temporary solution, and pulls Akihiko back in against him, presses kisses against the side of his face, and whispers: "Akihiko? I'm sorry."

And he manages to sound heartbreakingly sincere, because he is. Akihiko shivers against him, and Ugetsu runs his fingers down Akihiko's back. He keeps doing this until Akihiko forgives him, because Akihiko always forgives him, and begins to move again.

This time, Ugetsu welcomes the burn of sensation inside him that verges on pain. He rolls his hips up encouragingly, tilts his head back against the mattress and tries not to think: _What am I doing? Why am I always so weak?_

He feels a little sick at what he's just done, he knows he has to stop doing this eventually. But then Akihiko presses so hard into him that it sends a shocking flare of arousal up his spine, and Ugetsu completely forgets everything he's been thinking about. When Ugetsu cries out, Akihiko nearly breaks the headboard in his haste to reach his lips.

.

When Akihiko leaves to go to work, Ugetsu goes back on his promise, and does not go to sleep.

Instead, he sits on his bed, plucking absentmindedly at the strings of his violin. There are trills running through his head again, annoying and insistent. He thinks he knows what he's been doing wrong, but he doesn't reach down for his bow.

The silence in the morning is a little less solid than the silence at night, more fragile, but equally tense. It comes with the constant threat of a disturbance - a bird calling out in the distance, the rumble of wheels across the street above the basement. This is a soundproof room, but some sounds still manage to reach him here.

Ugetsu fingers the trill on the neck of his violin, hears it play in his head, and shivers.


End file.
